Conditional formatting compatibility issues

The Compatibility Checker found one or more conditional formatting-related compatibility issues.

Important: Before you continue saving the workbook to an earlier file format, you should address issues that cause a significant loss of functionality to prevent permanent loss of data or incorect funtionality.

Compatibility issues that cause a significant loss of functionality

Issue

Solution

Some cells have more conditional formats than are supported by the selected file format. Only the first three conditions will be displayed in earlier versions of Excel.

In Excel 2007, conditional formatting can contain up to sixty-four conditions, but in earlier versions of Excel, only three conditions are supported.

In earlier versions of Excel, users will see the first three conditions only. All conditional formatting rules remain available in the workbook, however, and are applied when the workbook is opened again in Excel 2007, unless the rules were edited in the earlier version of Excel.

In the Compatibility Checker, click Find to locate cells that have conditional formatting applied that use more than three conditions, and then make the necessary changes.

Some cells have overlapping conditional formatting ranges. Earlier versions of Excel will not evaluate all of the conditional formatting rules on the overlapping cells. The overlapping cells will show different conditional formatting.

In Excel 2007, conditional formatting ranges in cells can overlap, but this is not supported in earlier versions of Excel. As a result, conditional formatting is not displayed as expected.

In earlier versions of Excel, users will see different conditional formatting than expected. All conditional formatting rules remain available in the workbook, however, and are applied when the workbook is opened again in Excel 2007, unless the rules were edited in the earlier version of Excel.

In the Compatibility Checker, click Find to locate cells that have overlapping conditional formatting ranges, and then make the necessary changes.

One or more cells in this workbook contain a conditional formatting type that is not supported in earlier versions of Excel, such as data bars, color scales, or icon sets.

Excel 2007 provides the following new conditional formatting types that are not supported in earlier versions of Excel:

Color scales

Data bars

Icon sets

Top or bottom ranked values

Above or below average values

Unique or duplicate values

Table column comparison to determine which cells to format

In earlier versions of Excel, users will not see conditional formatting, such as data bars, color scales, or icon sets. All conditional formatting rules remain available in the workbook, however, and are applied when the workbook is opened again in Excel 2007, unless the rules were edited in the earlier version of Excel.

In the Compatibility Checker, click Find to locate cells that have conditional formatting types that are new in Excel 2007, and then make the necessary changes.

Some cells contain conditional formatting with the Stop if True option cleared. Earlier versions of Excel do not recognize this option and will stop after the first true condition.

In Excel 2007, you can apply conditional formatting without stopping when the condition has been met. This is not supported in earlier versions of Excel.

In the Compatibility Checker, click Find to locate cells that contain conditional formatting with the Stop if True option cleared, and then click Fix to resolve the compatibility issue.

In earlier versions of Excel, the conditional formatting results will not be the same as in Excel 2007, because conditional formatting is no longer applied after the first condition is true. All conditional formatting rules remain available in the workbook, however, and are applied when the workbook is opened again in Excel 2007, unless the rules were edited in the earlier version of Excel.

One or more cells in this workbook contain a conditional formatting type on a nonadjacent range (such as top/bottom N, top/bottom N%, above/below average, or above/below standard deviation). This is not supported in earlier versions of Excel.

In Excel 2007, you can apply conditional formatting to ranges that are not adjacent. This is not supported in earlier versions of Excel.

In earlier versions of Excel, users will not see conditional formatting in nonadjacent cells. All conditional formatting rules remain available in the workbook, however, and are applied when the workbook is opened again in Excel 2007, unless the rules were edited in the earlier version of Excel.

In the Compatibility Checker, click Find to locate cells that contain a conditional formatting type on a nonadjacent range, and then make the necessary changes.

Some PivotTables in this workbook contain conditional formatting that may not function correctly in earlier versions of Excel. The conditional formatting rules will not display the same results when you use these PivotTables in earlier versions of Excel.

Conditional formatting that is applied to Excel 2007 PivotTable reports does not display the same results in PivotTable reports in earlier versions of Excel.

In earlier versions of Excel, the conditional formatting results in the PivotTable reports will not be the same as in Excel 2007. All conditional formatting rules remain available in the workbook, however, and are applied when the workbook is opened again in Excel 2007, unless the rules were edited in the earlier version of Excel.

In the Compatibility Checker, click Find to locate PivotTable report fields that contain conditional formatting rules, and then make the necessary changes.